Dementia Support: Hampshire

Debate between Liz Jarvis and Chris Hinchliff

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Liz Jarvis]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Member.

The average wait time for a dementia diagnosis in Eastleigh is 91.7 days, and post-diagnostic support is inconsistent and often inadequate. We must get to a position where dementia care is built around a clear, joined-up pathway that families can rely on from the very start and where a person can receive early diagnosis followed immediately by assessments, access to specialist advice, dementia-trained professionals and consistent points of contact, such as Admiral nurses. Drug treatments, where appropriate, home-based support, respite care and, where needed, smooth transitions into care homes, would all be part of one coherent system, not a maze of disconnected services. We need more support to stay at home and more support in the community, and family carers should be informed about available support and given greater access to regular respite. Diagnosis must be the gateway to timely, specialist and sustained support; too often it is not.

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

The hon. Member is making a powerful speech about an incredibly important subject. It affects my constituency, too, where we have 1,500 people living with dementia. On top of that, as she was referring to, around a third of the people currently living with dementia do not have a diagnosis and, staggeringly, the NHS does not have a target to tackle that. Will she join me in urging the Minister to meet with Alzheimer’s Research UK to discuss its call for a national 18-week target from when people are referred by their GP for assessment to when they receive diagnosis and a treatment plan?

[Liz Jarvis]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Member.

I heard from a constituent whose wife has Lewy body dementia and has lived in the same care home for several years. She is settled there and knows the staff. They know her needs, her routines and her personality. It is, by any reasonable definition, her home. Yet my constituent has been told that when money for his wife’s self-funded care runs out, she will not be supported to remain there because the home is not on Hampshire county council’s approved list. She will be forced to move away from familiar faces into an unfamiliar environment at precisely the stage when stability and familiarity matter most.

Families impacted by dementia frequently find themselves navigating a fragmented system, unclear funding decisions, delayed assessments and a complete lack of continuity of care. One of my constituents told me that his mum, who is in her 90s, has been informed that her savings have now fallen below the financial threshold. He requested a review from the county council months ago. Despite repeated chasing, he has been told that it may be many months before their situation is reviewed. In the meantime he has been placed in the impossible position of having to somehow find the funds to continue to pay care home fees that he cannot afford or risking financial instability for the care provider. That is not how a compassionate system should function. Continuing healthcare funding must be urgently reviewed. Too many families face flawed assessments that fail to recognise the complex needs of people with dementia, leaving them to shoulder enormous financial burdens at the most vulnerable moments of their lives.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Liz Jarvis and Chris Hinchliff

Consideration of Lords amendments
Thursday 13th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Liz Jarvis (Eastleigh) (LD)]

I will focus my comments on Lords amendment 38. I have heard from many constituents who are deeply concerned about the potential environmental impact of this Bill and how it might affect the River Itchen, the precious chalk stream that runs through my constituency of Eastleigh. The River Itchen is a site of special scientific interest and a special area of conservation, but despite these designations, it has been subjected to repeated sewage discharges by Southern Water, threatening its delicate ecosystems and putting species at risk. We have incredible natural habitats that are being destroyed because existing protections have failed. Indeed, in the latest Environment Agency assessment, Southern Water was handed a two-star rating after causing a shocking 269 pollution incidents last year, including 15 classified as serious.

According to the 2024-25 chalk stream annual review, 83% of England’s chalk streams are failing to achieve good ecological status, which is disgraceful. That is why Lords amendment 38 is so important to my constituents and to communities across the country who live alongside these extraordinary habitats. There is no reason why we cannot have a thoughtful planning process that protects our precious natural environment and delivers the social and affordable housing that our communities desperately need, with the infrastructure to support it. We have an opportunity to show that development and environmental responsibility are not competing interests, but shared objectives. By embedding these principles in the Bill, we can address the housing crisis while simultaneously protecting our rivers, habitats and green spaces.

Lords amendment 38 would establish much-needed new protections for chalk streams and impose a responsibility on strategic planning authorities to enhance chalk stream environments. I saw the urgent need to address this issue when I visited with representatives of the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust this summer, when I was able to test the water quality of the River Itchen. With the help of experts, we saw at first hand the very low levels of biodiversity and high nitrate levels. I fully support the proposition that spatial development strategies must list chalk streams in their strategic area, and safeguard them from irreplaceable damage by outlining clear measures to protect from environmental harm.

Greater and appropriate consideration for our chalk streams is long overdue. I welcome the fact that, under Lords amendment 38, local spatial development strategies would vary according to the needs of the particular area, allowing strategies to set different balancing points between local conservation and development needs in different places. It is disappointing that the Government are unwilling to retain the amendment. Will the Minister instead commit to strengthening existing planning mechanisms and ensure that water companies are held to account, so that chalk streams are protected? This is such an important issue for my constituents, and anything less than a cast-iron guarantee is not good enough.

People across the country deeply value and treasure our natural environment. We need to deliver the housing and infrastructure that are vital for our communities, but let us not treat our chalk streams, wildlife and habitats as an afterthought.

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

I declare an interest as a vice-chair of the Climate and Nature Crisis Caucus.

At the outset of my contribution to today’s debate on this important legislation, there are a few general points that are probably worth reiterating. There need be no conflict between house building and nature; the real conflict is between greed and the sort of country we want to build. After 20 years of planning deregulation, time and again we see profiteering trumping public need and the protection of the countryside; cost cutting where communities deserve quality; and low-density, high-price housing while families wait for council homes.

Since we last debated the Bill in this place, Key Cities has published a very useful report, which highlights that in a survey of its members, only 6% cited the planning system as the primary obstacle to house building. More than twice that figure pointed to developer delays, so I hope that we will shortly see similarly major Government legislation to tackle the profiteering developers that are blocking the delivery of genuinely affordable housing in this country.

The recent announcement of plans for towns built within a new forest shows that good development and nature recovery can go hand in hand, and we must go further. A democratic programme of mass council house building could easily avoid the clashes that so often mark the developer-led system. What is needed are well-funded councils with the power to assemble land and identify the best sites for new homes—building not grey estates that are shaped by the defeatism of low expectations, but cohesive, thriving communities that are built for life to flourish. That is the solution to the housing crisis and would create a country that puts people and nature before profit.

I welcome the several important amendments tabled by the Government in the other place. In my view, the most important is the stronger overall improvement test for nature recovery, which I campaigned for on Report. It is very good news that these amendments have substantially allayed the concerns of the Office for Environmental Protection. Nevertheless, it is clear that environmental experts and conservationists continue to have some concerns, which the other place has sought to address through Lords amendments 40 and 38 in particular.

Our Labour Government were elected on a clear manifesto promise to reverse the nature crisis in this country, so it is essential we get this right. That is particularly urgent for our endangered species and irreplaceable habitats, including chalk streams such as the Rib, Beane, Ivel and Mimram, which criss-cross North East Hertfordshire and bring joy to so many people’s lives. I genuinely welcome the comments that the Minister has made to allay the concerns of nature experts, and I will dedicate my remaining time to a few short questions that I hope he can address in his wind-up.

First, given the need for legal certainty, can the Minister confirm that the overall improvement test will guarantee that irreplaceable habitats and species cannot be covered by EDPs, and if so, will the Government set out a list of environmental features that they consider would be irreplaceable?

Secondly, can the Minister confirm whether any EDPs are currently under consideration or development by Natural England, or proposed by the Government? If so, will any of them be affected if Lords amendment 40 remained part of the Bill?

Thirdly, will the Minister give confidence to the many constituents of North East Hertfordshire worried about potential impacts on the wildlife we love by once again putting on record that the Government recognise the difference between diffuse landscape issues such as nutrient pollution, where strategic scale action is best suited for nature restoration, and protected sites and species that cannot easily be recreated elsewhere?

Fourthly, given the widespread interest in this Bill shown by many of our constituents and by the wider nature sector, will the Minister consider providing further transparency and accountability through a Government amendment in lieu of Lords amendment 40 to ensure parliamentary approval of EDPs beyond diffuse issues such as air, water and newts?

Fifthly, given that the “Catchment Based Approach” annual review published this autumn found that a third of chalk streams do not have a healthy flow regime, that over-abstraction due to development pressures is one of the main threats facing these crown jewels of our natural heritage and that there are currently no planning policies specifically protecting chalk streams, can the Minister set out in more detail how the Government foresee planning authorities being able to direct inappropriate development away from struggling chalk streams within the process of setting spatial development strategy plans, and would he consider opportunities for this through regulation, if not through the Bill?

Sixthly, will the Minister provide further certainty from the Dispatch Box about ensuring that chalk streams are specifically added to the national planning policy framework as an irreplaceable habitat, and will he set out when this might happen given that an update of those provisions has been delayed since 2023?

Seventhly, as one reason put forward for Lords amendment 40 is that it would mitigate concerns about the weakening of the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, what reassurances can the Minister give my constituents that these iconic animals will not be at risk from widespread licences to kill in EDPs paid for by developers in the absence of Lords amendment 40?

Eighthly, can the Minister confirm whether the Government have assessed the potential impact of proposed biodiversity net gain exemptions on the private finance for nature markets that will be essential for the delivery of EDPs?

Ninthly and finally, can the Minister reassure those who have raised concerns that the current legislation may allow money committed to the natural restoration fund to be redirected to other purposes?